Dying for Chocolate

“Although I understand that your son is indeed learning to dive,” she said as if this concluded her thought. She sniffed. “Our daughter has been on the country-club swim team for three years.”

These subjects were related. Joan had passed Manipulative Behavior 101. Arch was learning to dive. Joan’s daughter was an excellent swimmer. The school needed a pool. If I helped with the fund-raiser, Arch would learn to swim, save the school, and get the girl. I bit the inside of my cheek. How Arch wooed his female friends was up to him. And I had no money.

I said, “I’m glad your daughter is a good swimmer.”

Joan Rasmussen tsked with impatience. “Would it be possible for you to pick up your fund-raising decals at the school tomorrow? You’re one of the very few parents who has not participated in any way.”

A shrink would have a field day with this woman. Or with me, as I succumbed to a crushing wave of guilt.

I said, “I’d be happy to pick up my decals tomorrow. Did you need to speak with Adele?”

“Is she swimming this time, too?”

“Well, yes, actually, but she’ll be at the school tomorrow for a fund-raising meeting—”

Joan Rasmussen hung up on me. I replaced the receiver with the comforting thought that type A behavior usually had its own reward.

Monday morning after I had done my yoga routine and seen everyone off for the day’s activities, I set out for Aspen Meadow, namesake for our little burg. Nothing like driving out in the unsullied Colorado high country to rid the mind of peevish folks like Ms. Rasmussen.

As I drove, I was thankful that the preservers of Aspen Meadow’s environment had held their own during the state’s boom-and-bust periods. In our town, a shaky alliance between the old-time naturalists and new-age Greenpeace and Audubon Society types had kept the lid on rampant development. Philip Miller was definitely in the latter category, although he had never talked to me at any length about his involvement. To our age group, environmental activism was as natural an activity as bridge club and Republican women’s club had been for my mother and her set in New Jersey.

Meadows and forest refulgent with growth bordered upper Cottonwood Creek on the way to the meadow. My environment-preserving friends had worked unceasingly to scuttle the state’s plan for a bypass through here about ten years ago. Before that, the do-gooders had moved heaven and earth to keep Aspen Meadow from being a site for the winter Olympics. Most towns would kill to get the Olympics. Not folks in Aspen Meadow. Imagine our meager hills being torn up for ski runs! No thank you! One of their posters had become a collector’s item: Save trees from skis.

Out my window the wildflowers of mid-June seemed to wave in appreciation. Near the road, stands of chokecherry bobbed long, sweet shoots of white blossoms. Arrows of crimson fireweed dotted a dirt embankment, while the creeksides burgeoned with golden banner. Through the meadows, brilliant Indian paintbrush splashed orange amid the green.

At the entrance to the wildlife preserve the van thudded from pavement to dirt. If I could ever get ahead in the financial arena, I was considering getting one of those new four-wheel-drive vans. Then I could ferry comestibles through any manner of blizzard and road conditions. But for now I would coax the old VW along, even on cratered dirt roads like this, and not ask too much of it.

Elizabeth and I had agreed to meet around ten to have time in case the rain made its habitual appearance in the early afternoon. Elizabeth had not felt moved to be on time. I staked out our spot, an old picnic table by the stream. Close by I could see the boarded-up cabin of a beekeeper friend of mine. But the beekeeper was long gone. Standing on one of the picnic benches, I could just see one of his hives. Would the bees still be there, I wondered, and did they miss him?

“What do you suppose happens to you after you die?” asked Elizabeth, who had appeared next to me. Her black ballet slippers had made no noise in the grass.

“Gosh,” I said, startled. “I don’t know.” I was willing to bet my pound cake that Elizabeth subscribed to some esoteric theory of reincarnation. And at that moment I was not prepared to hear about Philip as a butterfly alighting on a nearby wild iris.

“I’ve been reflecting on it. What did Philip think about life? What was important to him? I know how he felt about vitamins B, E, and C, and how he felt about our parents. But I haven’t a clue about his view of the afterlife.”

“Let’s sit,” I said. She followed me to the table. Cottonwood Creek, muddied by the spring snowmelt, gurgled over a bed of rocks. I fluffed out a green-and-white-checked tablecloth and we both put down our baskets.

I ladled out thick slices of tomatoes vinaigrette onto two paper plates. “What I think,” I said, “is that you have a clue about what was important to a person in life when you look at how he spent his time.”

Elizabeth peered into her bowls and said, “Uh-huh.” She scooped spoonfuls of tabbouleh out for the two of us. Her offering looked like a cross between birdseed and the mixture they give in the cat cage at the Denver Zoo. I took a bite of tabbouleh, to be polite.

“So,” I went on, “what was important to him was his practice and his activities like Audubon.” I took a deep breath. “And giving his body to science?”

She looked away. A bee buzzed around the frizz of her hair.

“Yes,” she said delicately. “He was an organ donor.”

“I heard you arguing with Weezie about it.”

Elizabeth squinched up her pixie nose. “That first-class bitch.”

“Oh,” I said to keep her talking, “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

“You want to know what she wanted that day? The day after my brother died. You’re not going to believe this.” Elizabeth mimicked Weezie in a clever, accurate high pitch. “ ’Did he leave anything to me?’ Of course, I thought she meant money. But the day of the Audubon Society picnic she pulls me aside. She says, ’Don’t you think this ridge is beautiful?’ When I say of course, she says, ’Well, where’s Philip’s ecological strategy plan? Last Thursday he told me he had it ready to present to the county commissioners!’ “

I shook my head. Last Thursday. The day before he died.

I said, “A friend of mine is a police officer down at the Sheriff’s Department. Mind if I tell him this? He might be interested.”

She shrugged. “I don’t care. I think Weezie’s out of her mind. I don’t know whether she and my brother were . . . having an affair, the way everyone thinks. But I doubt it. Besides, she used to own the damn ridge. If she doesn’t want Brian to develop it, why’d they go to the planning commission and say they did? You know the county commissioners aren’t going to veto a development once the planners have given the okay.”

I said, “I don’t know. Maybe she just got carried away because she knew it was important to him.”

Elizabeth studied the creek.

She said, “You were important to him.”

I shrugged. “Yeah. I know.”

She sighed. “I didn’t know much about his practice. You know, couldn’t tell tales. But the two of you seemed to be happy.”

“Yeah, well.”

Her brow furrowed. “Remember the morning of the brunch? I never really had the whole picture of what was going on in his life, you know. He just didn’t share. But I did want to talk to him, because this time I knew he was stressed out.”

“About what?”

“A couple of clients, I think.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. One was homicidal, can you imagine? That’s all he told me. He said, Guess there are crazies everywhere.”

I was stunned. “That’s all he told you?” Schulz had found no notes, nothing indicating this, I was sure.

“Yeah, it was something that had just come up. He was getting some research done on it. The other was some woman who had been abused.”